Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-07-16

| rne story of resurrection would never
nave been SO gleriously told as he told
il. That example OF heroic and trl-
umphant endurance at Pnilippi, IN TN
| Mediterranean E~uroclydon, under nag.
citation and at bio ~beheading weuId
not have kindled the courage of ten
thousand m%artyrdoms. But that rope
holding that basket, how much de-
pended on it! SO again and again great
results have hung on what seemed slen-
d n circumstances.
Did ever ship Of many thousand tons
| crossing the sea have such important
passenger AS had nee "A boat OF leaves.
from ~taffrail to stern only three or four
feet. the vessel made waterproof by a
! coat of bitumen and floating on the
! Nile with the infant lawgiver of the
Jews on board' What if some Q
die should crunch itp What If o Il.
Of the cattle wading in for n drink
| should sink it? Vessels Of war some
times carry forty guns looking through
the port holes, ready to open battle.
But that tiny craft On the Nile seems
TO be armed with all the guns of thun-
der that bombarded Sinai at the law
giving. On how fragile craft sailed
now much OF historical Importance!
The parsonage at Epworth, England.
is on fire in the night, and the father
rushed through the hallway for the res
cue of his children. Seven children
are out and safe on the ground, but
one remains in the consuming build
ing, That one wakes; and finding his
bed on fire and the building crumbling
comes to the window and two peasants
make a ladder of their bodies, one
peasant standing on the shoulders OF
he other, and do wn the human ladder
the boy descends-
JOHN WESLEY.
Ii YOU would know how much de-
pended on that ladder of peasants ask
the millions of Ncthodists on both side,
Of the sea. Ask their mission stations
all round tue world. Ask their hun.
drcds of thousands already ascended
to Join their founder. who would have
perishcd but for the living stairs o
peasants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairi
Island, and right i'll the midst Of sur
rounding cannibaiism aud squalor, The
passengers discovered II Christian col
ony of churches and schools and beau
titul homes and highest style of religion
and civilization. For fifty years n,
missionary and no Christian Influence
bad landed there. Why this oasis o
light amid "A desert OF heathendom
Sixty years before II ship had met dis
aster, and one of the sailors, unable f
save anything else, went to his trunI
and took out Il Bible which his motbe
had placed there, and swan ashore
the Bible held in his teeth. The boo
was read on all sides, until the reugI
and vicious population were eva
gcltzed, and a church "a started, am
an enlightened commonwealth cstat
lished and the worlds history has n
more brilliant page than that whic.
tells Of the transformation of "A natioI
ny one book. /. did not seem of niue.
Importance whether the sailor con
tinued to hold the book in his teeth 0
let it fall in the breakers, but upoI
what small circumstance de .)ende,
what mighty results!
PRACTICAL INFERENCE.
There are no insignificances in on
lives. The minutest thing is part c
a magnitude. Intinity is made up @
intinitesimals. Great things an az
gregation of small things. Bethleher
l Munger, pulling on II star i
; the eastern sky. One book in
{ drenched sailors mouth the evangeli
za.ion of a multitude. Dee boat O
papyrus on the Nile freigbtcd wit
events for all ages. The fate of Chris
; tendon in a basket let down from
: window on the wall. What you do, d,
well. If you make a rope make it stron,
aud true. fol you know not how mucl
may depend on your Workmanship.
you fashion Il boat let it be water
proof for you know not who may sal
in it. If you put II Bible in the tIunl
of your hoy as he goes from home, lie
it be heard in your prayers. for it ma,
have Il mission rs f~ar-reaching as th'
book which the sailor carried in hi
teeth to the Pitcairn beach. Th,
plaincst mans life is an island between
two eternitles- etrnity past ripping
against his shoulders, eternity 10 come
touching his brow. The casual, the
accidental that which merely hap.
pened so, are parts of a great plan,
aud the rope that lets the fugitiv,
apostle from the Damascus wall is the
cable that holds to its mooring the ship
Of the church in the northeast storm OF
the centuries.
UNRECoGNIZED SERVICES.
Again, notice unrecogniZed and un.
recorded services. Who spun that
r0pep Who tied it to the basket? Who
steadied the illustrious preacher rs he
stepped into itP Who relaxed not q
muscle Of the arm or dismissed an
anxious look from his face until the
basket touched the ground and dis
charged ITS magnificent cargo? Not
one Of their nqmes has come 10 us, hu'
there was no work done that day in
Damascus or in all the earth compared
with the importance of their work
What If they had in the agitation tiec
a knot that could slipP What if the
sound of the mob at the door had lee
them TO saw: ..Paui must take care O